All posts tagged School

Japan’s education ministry on Thursday released the results from its first ever survey on the sleeping habits of students and how it affects their daily routine. The survey of fifth graders to high school students at 800 different schools was conducted in November.

Japan has largely been spared the type of violence that has plagued American schools. But there appears to have been a rash of knife-wielding incidents in recent months at or near Japanese schools. On Friday afternoon, Japanese TV news reported heavily on an incident in Tokyo’s Nerima ward, when a man in his forties got out of his car and, without saying a word, cut three first-graders walking home from school, slicing one on the arm and two in the neck before escaping in his car. The children were taken to the hospital, but their injuries weren’t considered to be life-threatening. Read More »

Study abroad isn’t just a luxury, these days it’s a rite of passage for many students around the world. While more and more students in Asia and the U.S. are venturing overseas, a recent survey shows that just 57.2% of Japanese students, once the prototypical image of expat learners during the bubble, are interested in an overseas academic experience.

The survey, published by the Japan Youth Research Institute, polled over 8,000 students from the China, South Korea, Japan and the U.S. in 2011. Even though 58.1% of Japanese students had been abroad, they ranked lowest of the four countries in terms of interest in a study abroad experience. In comparison, 82.4% in South Korea and 62.5% in China and were interested. Read More »

Workers remove topsoil from the playground at Kaoru Elementary School in Koriyama, 70 km (44 miles) from the tsunami-crippled nuclear reactor in Fukushima Prefecture.

Five months to the day since the March 11 disasters, schoolyards in Fukushima Prefecture are full of noise and movement.

But the purposeful activity isn’t from teachers or kids preparing for the second semester, due to start in most cases on Aug. 25. What’s making schools busy places in the prefecture that’s home to the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is decontamination work. Read More »

Student Saya Otsuki leaves school after her entrance ceremony in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture, April 21.

As concerns over radiation contamination in water and food continue to hover in disaster-struck northeastern Japan, public schools in eight towns in Iwate and Miyagi are still unable to provide regular lunches to their students, according to Japanese press reports (in Japanese).

With facilities knocked out by the March earthquake and tsunami, some lunch distribution centers can’t offer regular menus even though students went back to school in April. For instance, public elementary and middle schools in Ishinomaki city have only been able to provide students with an extremely lean menu—typically a bread roll and a serving of milk, with the occasional gelatin pudding. Read More »

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Japan Real Time is a newsy, concise guide to what works, what doesn’t and why in the one-time poster child for Asian development, as it struggles to keep pace with faster-growing neighbors while competing with Europe for Michelin-rated restaurants. Drawing on the expertise of The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires, the site provides an inside track on business, politics and lifestyle in Japan as it comes to terms with being overtaken by China as the world’s second-biggest economy. You can contact the editors at japanrealtime@wsj.com